The present invention relates to semiconductor lasers and, more particularly, to semiconductor lasers utilizing transistor-type structures.
Transistors are widely employed in many electronic switching applications and represent a well developed art with a number of possible variations depending upon the particular application.
Similarly, semiconductor lasers employing p-n junctions are now widely employed in many applications and offer design flexibility and ease for optoelectronic triggering. More recently, semiconductor lasers have been proposed which use multiple p-n junctions to generate multiple output beams.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a novel laser heterostructure combining aspects of a semiconductor laser and a semiconductor transistor.
It is also an object to provide such a novel laser heterostructure comprising a heterjunction bipolar transistor (HBT) laser which may be readily fabricated and which may be tailored to provide characteristics optimized for given applications.
Another object is to provide such a novel laser heterostructure combining aspects of a semiconductor laser and a semiconductor transistor which can be triggered electronically by using conventional logic circuits or optically for integration in various optoelectronic integrated circuits (OEICs).